


I can smile because we're together; soonhoon

by kwanies



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Florist!Jihoon, Language of Flowers, M/M, soft boys uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 00:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21090668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwanies/pseuds/kwanies
Summary: Because Jihoon is just the cute florist down the street, and Soonyoung figures out he has a thing for boys like him.





	I can smile because we're together; soonhoon

**Author's Note:**

> a (late) birthday gift for [elisabeth](https://twitter.com/_moonlitecho_/) !!!!! one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, you mean so so much to me and i hope you had the bestest birthday :'') i love you!!!!
> 
> (i've been wanting to write a flower shop au for a while and while this didn't turn out exactly how i expected it to i hope you like it!!!! <3<3<3<)

Soonyoung feels like a kid, dangling upside down with his legs hooked over a thick tree branch. He looks up past the leaves, past the sunlight filtering through them, up to the wide, blue sky and all its puffy clouds. He squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them again. When he does, Jihoon’s nose is centimeters away from his and the wrong way around.

“You’re going to pass out from all the blood rushing to your head.”

“That’s the last thing I want.”

Jihoon snorts. “Then get off the tree, weirdo.”

Soonyoung groans and manages to right himself, wrapping himself around the branch like a sloth before jumping off. He lands where the grass is softer, greener in the summer warmth, and Jihoon’s already practically a world away from him. “Hey,” he calls, “wait up!”

The thing is, he’s never been much of an explorer; actually, this is the most time he’s spent outside of his house since school ended. He can hear it, a voice at the back of his head, mocking him -  _ ah, the things you’d do for a cute boy _ .

A cute boy who’s currently standing right where the grass has stopped growing, keeping his shoes just out of reach from the lake water lapping nearby. “There aren’t any flowers there,” Soonyoung says.

> _ “So, any weekend plans?” _
> 
> _ Jihoon looks up from the register, wearing that same expression Soonyoung’s gotten so used to seeing. Kind of amused, kind of confused. “Maybe. Why?” _
> 
> _ “Because, I dunno. Maybe I could join you.” _
> 
> _ Jihoon smiles, seems to think about this. _
> 
> _ “I was gonna go for a walk down by the lake. I could meet you here.” _
> 
> _ Soonyoung grinned. “It’s a date.” _

Some date, Soonyoung thinks, but he’s actually kind of amazed. When Jihoon said  _ down by the lake,  _ he didn’t think he meant  _ this _ far down; they’re farther than Soonyoung’s ever thought to go, way past the woods on the outskirts of their hometown, where the trees haven’t been chopped and the grass grows up to their calves. Given that the most scenic things he’s ever seen have been out of video games, Soonyoung is pretty impressed by nature’s work. He says as much.

“There’s a real world out here,” Jihoon says, not looking at him. “A lot of really pretty things, if you just look for them.”  _ I’m looking for them _ , Soonyoung wants to say, looking  _ at _ them, but he keeps his mouth shut and simply walks closer.

“Again, no flowers. Didn’t we come out here for flowers?”

> _ “Do you go on these nature walks often?” Soonyoung asks. Jihoon shrugs. _
> 
> _ “Every now and then. I like pressing flowers, like, small ones, and you can find a bunch out by the water. People don’t go there too often, so they don’t get trampled on.” _

“We did,” he says. “I’m just looking.”

“What’s to see?” Jihoon points to the surface of the water, rippling where the breeze hits it, but doesn’t say. Soonyoung’s laugh comes out in a puff of air, endeared. “You’re a strange one.”

“Am I?”

“How many seventeen year old boys are as passionate about nature and plants as you are?”

Jihoon starts to move again, stepping over strewn branches and rocks. “Uh, the really cool ones, I think? You tell me.”

“If I pick a bunch of flowers, will you press them for me?”

“Sure.”

They carry on like that; gently, softly leaving footprints in the dirt while they look for colorful, pretty things to pick up. Jihoon drops every little flower he finds into his hat, Soonyoung squeezes their stems in his fist.

> _ “Why do you keep coming ‘round here?” It comes out pointed, with a pointed look and a pointed pencil right at him. Soonyoung blinks. _
> 
> _ “Sorry?” _
> 
> _ “I know you, we had environmental sciences together last year. You don’t seem like the type of guy to stop by a flower shop every other day to buy flowers for his mom.” The boy keeps looking at him, but lowers his pencil to continue scribbling absentmindedly on his notepad. _
> 
> _ “Well, maybe I am.” _
> 
> _ “Are you?” _
> 
> _ “I wasn’t,” Soonyoung says, truthful. “But I think maybe now I am.” _
> 
> _ Jihoon watches him like a painting, like reading a poem, like picking out the details on his face and in his expression and trying to assign meaning. He’s got big, bright eyes, and even when he’s being criticized by him Soonyoung can feel his heart knocking patterns against his chest. _

Soonyoung tears something out of the ground, liking the color of it; it’s delicate and cup-shaped, muted, butterfly-blue with a small white patch in the center. Jihoon frowns at him and says, “Be more gentle when you pick them.”

“What’s this one called?” Soonyoung asks, ignoring.

Glancing at it, the boy doesn’t take more than a few seconds to answer, “Nemophila. Baby blue eyes. Phileo means to love, in Greek.”

“Oh.” Soonyoung grabs another one of those, holding them tight. He decides he likes them.

A little later, he asks, “How did we meet?” It gets quiet between the two of them, while they’re both roaming and searching for wildflowers to pick, and he doesn’t like it so much - he likes the sound of Jihoon’s voice, the lilt of it. Soonyoung says he sounds like a bed of buttercups, and Jihoon tells him buttercups don’t sound like anything, but he still believes it.

“How did we meet? You know how we met. You walked into my mom’s shop and decided to make yourself at home, that’s how.”

“I walked into your mom’s shop to buy a bouquet for my sister’s birthday, and I saw you and I thought,  _ wow, he’s pretty,  _ and  _ then _ I made myself at home,” Soonyoung corrects, liking the way Jihoon’s face turns pink.

He remembers it like yesterday, walking in and feeling struck the second he laid eyes on the boy. Jihoon was leaning over a stand of apple blossoms and watering them, moving slowly and taking care not to spill. Soonyoung noticed his face, first, he saw his nose, the shine on his cheeks, his pretty mouth sitting in an idle frown. He remembers planning to pick up the first bouquet he saw, but beelining for the florist instead, asking, “What are good flowers to buy for a birthday?” That got him talking.

Now, Soonyoung knows that Jihoon could go  _ on _ about all the different plant types and their meanings. Then, he just stood, dumbstruck, listening to him rattle on.

> _ “I would do a blend of things - pink roses aren’t as extreme as red roses, but they’re a good expression of love. Purple tulips say admiration, chrysanthemums are happiness, loyalty and longevity. I’d stay away from gladiolus if this is for a friend or family member, see, because … “ _
> 
> _ “You’re real good at this, huh?” Soonyoung says later at the checkout, swiping his card. “The symbolism and all that. I could never remember them all.” Jihoon seems flustered. _
> 
> _ “Ah, it’s not much, I just think they’re interesting.” _

_ I think you’re interesting _ , Soonyoung had wanted to say, but he didn’t. Instead, he told him two days later, when he came back again for no reason other than the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“You’re lame,” Jihoon says. He steps onto a small boulder, trying to reach a blossom off a tree.

“What can I say? Cute, interesting florists have a way of staying on my mind.” Soonyoung strides over to get the blossom for him, smiling when Jihoon huffs. He takes one of the smaller flowers in his hand and snaps the stem in half so it’s shorter, tucking it behind Jihoon’s ear and smiling even harder when he blushes.

Jihoon doesn’t look at him when he hands him something, small and bell-shaped and sun shining yellow. “Smell it,” he says, so Soonyoung does. He sniffs the heart of it, where the short, soft petals touch the pistil, and it smells like apricot. Like spring in full bloom, even though spring was weeks ago. It’s nothing particularly unbelievable, but he feels floored, anyway.

“Apricot,” he says. Apricot. Jihoon handed him a pretty flower that smells like apricot, and now he thinks he’ll never forget it. Jihoon nods.

“Mm-hmm. Cowslip.” He tells him to keep it, and Soonyoung thinks he’ll go home and press it between the pages of his favorite book, to hold forever.

“I think you’re really lovely,” he says, “you know that?” He tries to keep his voice steady and confident, but it just comes out kind of quiet. When Jihoon doesn’t answer, he says it again.

“I heard you.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything back?”

“Because … Because I don’t know what to say. I’m not good at these things.”

“What things?”

“Like, words. Talking.”

And Soonyoung understands that, he knows Jihoon is a little shy, so he leaves him be. They continue wandering around together, and Soonyoung gets close enough for the backs of their hands to brush; when they do, his heart feels like it’s spinning. His lungs fill up with flower petals and his smile turns stupid. He feels dumb, but he can’t say he doesn’t love it when Jihoon doesn’t move away.

Later, Jihoon hands him a very small bunch, four flowers that look similar to the baby blue eyes, but the petals are more splayed out and the centers are yellow. “These clump together,” Jihoon tells him. “They grow in bunches. Their seeds are pretty easy to distinguish.”

“What are they called?” Soonyoung asks, and the boy turns rosy.

“Er, forget-me-nots.”

Soonyoung looks back down at them. They’re shy looking flowers, pale, but so pretty. Kind of like Jihoon, he thinks. Just another patch in the garden that he is, made up of a million wonderful things. Jihoon’s not so good with his words, maybe, but this is his own sort of language. Soonyoung wants to learn it.

> _ “What if I came to visit you every day?” he asks. _
> 
> _ “What if you did?” _
> 
> _ “Would that bother you?” _
> 
> _ Jihoon pauses, almost like he’s thinking about it, and then shakes his head. “No. No, it wouldn’t.” _
> 
> _ “You could teach me all the meanings, and all your favorite flowers.” _
> 
> _ “Mm, I could do that. I would.” _
> 
> _ “You would?” _
> 
> _ “Sure. I like having you around, anyway.” _

Jihoon, Jihoon, Jihoon. Soonyoung’s precious flower boy. Their hands wrap around each other like vines, Jihoon breathes into him like baby’s breath. Soonyoung feels like a field lit up in color when Jihoon looks at him, and that’s just the way it is. He’s never liked someone so much.

“You’re cheesy,” Jihoon tells him.

“You like it,” Soonyoung says back, and that gets him quiet.

They live life gently, Soonyoung thinks, and he hopes that it’ll last a long time.


End file.
